Fame Lab

Dr Mark Lythgoe is a neurophysiologist and Director of the Experimental MRI Unit at UCL, where he develops novel Magnetic Resonance Imaging techniques for brain and heart imaging and investigates possible therapies for stroke and epilepsy. Mark also has an interest in the neurobiology of creativity, specifically the sudden onset of artistic creativity following stroke.  Mark is passionate about the public engagement of science and has collaborated with a wide variety of artists to create works from sculpture to film. In 2005, Mark received a Biosciences Federation Science Communication Award, which rewards scientists who make an outstanding and consistent contribution to communicating science to the public.  Mark has designed and produced the experimental space AfterImage, which investigates light and our perception of colour, as part of the Dan Flavin exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, which opened Jan 2006.  Mark has been involved in many TV programmes including a documentary series for the BBC “Is this the one?” a Channel 4 programme “The Secret of Einstein’s Brain”, and a Discovery Channel series on the interaction of electricity on the human body and the brain.  Mark has also presented a series for BBC Radio 4 on the evolution of language called “Say what you think”.

Professor Kathy Sykes holds the Collier Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Bristol. She is devoted to science communication and is active on on many boards and panels promoting science communication, including Co-Directing the Cheltenham Festival of Science. Kathy appears on various programmes for the BBC and sits on the Council for Science and Technology, the UK Government’s top science advisory panel.

Mark Henderson is Science Editor of The Times. He has twice won the Medical Journalists Association / Norwich Union story of the year award, and reports on all aspects of science news. He writes a weekly science column for the Saturday Review section, and contributes regularly to the comment section. For five years, he wrote the Junk Medicine column in the Body & Soul health supplement. His particular interests include genetics, stem cell research and reproductive medicine. His first book, 50 Genetics Ideas You Really Need To Know, is published by Quercus.

Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas (IoI), which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. Claire initiated the IoI while co-publisher of the controversial and ground-breaking current affairs journal LM magazine (formerly Living Marxism). The IoI has since worked with a variety of prestigious institutions in Britain and abroad.

Claire has a particular interest in education and social issues such as crime and mental health. She is highly critical of authoritarian developments such as New Labour's 'antisocial behaviour orders'. She is also a passionate supporter of the arts, and strongly believes that they should be valued for their own sake. She argues that efforts to dilute the arts for the benefit of 'the socially excluded' are patronising rather than democratic.

Claire convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival, which will next take place in London in November 2008. She is a panellist on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze and is regularly invited to comment on developments in culture, education and the media on TV and radio programmes such as Question Time, Any Questions?, and BBC Breakfast. Claire writes regularly for national newspapers and a range of specialist journals. She has a monthly column in the MJ (municipal journal) and presented ‘Claire Fox News' on the internet TV channel 18 Doughty Street.
Claire previously worked as a mental health social worker and as a lecturer in English literature. She was a judge on the panel for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2006 (download her speech given to the 2006 Orange Prize Libraries Seminar) and features in the ‘Who's Who' almanac 2007. Claire was number 64 in Time Out's 2006 London Movers and Shakers list, and was named the capital's No.3 activist. Claire also features in the Telegraph's list of Britain's 100 most influential people on the Left.

Roger Highfield was born in Wales, raised in north London and became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble. He has written half a dozen books, sat on a few committees and was the science editor of The Daily Telegraph for two decades. Today, he is the Editor of New Scientist.

Laura has a degree in physics and a PhD in science communication from the University of Liverpool. She now runs a small research consultancy based in London although her work takes her all over the UK and occasionally beyond. Laura's research interests cover science education (especially informal education), widening participation and public engagement.

While she now focuses on research and evaluation, Laura's background in science communication inspires her current work. As a PhD student she ran a company from the Department of Physics at the University of Liverpool giving demonstration lectures and running workshops in schools and museums. Following this she has been involved in some larger lecture tours, co-presenting the 2003 IET Faraday Lectures and the 2005 Institute of Physics Schools and Colleges lecture series. This incessant banging on about science and education led Laura to co-present The Big Experiment on the Discovery Channel, where she worked with a group of 19 energetic students from Newham in East London to excite them about science and help them take half a GCSE 18 months early.

David Glover is the Deputy Commissioning Editor for History and Science at Channel 4 in the UK. He also works in conjunction with More 4. David is currently commissioning a wide range of programmes. Particularly he is looking for new approaches to popular subject matter, as well as looking for ways to make less obvious subject matter appealing to a wide audience. David joined Channel 4 after working at Windfall Films devising and producing a number of innovative and award winning programmes including ‘The Tourist Trap’, ‘DNA’ and ‘The Heist’.

Dr George C McGavin is an author, lecturer, television presenter and explorer. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the world famous Oxford University Museum of Natural History and The Department of Zoology of Oxford University. He is also Visiting Professor of Entomology at the University of Derby. George studied Zoology at Edinburgh University before completing a doctorate at the British Museum of Natural History and Imperial College, London.

Acknowledged as an engaging and entertaining speaker George regularly speaks to audiences about insects, ecology, evolution, conservation and exploration. He has lectured at the Cheltenham Science Festival, given the Royal Geographical Society Children's Christmas Lecture and was the winner of the the Earthwatch Debate (2008). He contributes to the Schools Programme for the Royal Institution and is an enrichment lecturer onboard Cunard ships. As well as studying insects, George also eats them and has appeared on the Richard and Judy Show as the guest chef.

George McGavin is a Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Geographical Society, has several insect species named in his honour and hopes they survive him.

Kate Bellingham is an engineer, broadcaster and teacher. She was a presenter on ‘Tomorrow's World' for four years, and has presented several other TV and radio series. With a degree in physics, a MSc in electronic communication systems and as a qualified teacher, she has worked as a computer programmer, broadcast engineer, presenter, promoter of science and engineering, secondary maths teacher, and currently she is the Bloodhound Education Ambassador and the National STEM Careers Coordinator.

Dr Lloyd Anderson is the British Council's Director of Science, Engineering and Environment, based in London. He is responsible for setting corporate policy in science, engineering & environment, in close consultation with key UK stakeholders and partners, and helping translate that global policy into strategies at the regional and local level. The sector has a global budget of £8m, with programmes and science network representatives in 70 countries. He also ensures British Council teams overseas have the right activities and campaigns to promote British science innovatively and effectively, and networks at senior level within the UK science community and Whitehall to build understanding and support for the Council's science work.

Sue Blackmore is a psychologist and writer researching consciousness, memes, and anomalous experiences, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. She blogs for the Guardian and Psychology Today, and often appears on radio and television. Her book The Meme Machine (1999) has been translated into 13 other languages and more recent books include a textbook Consciousness: An Introduction (2003), Conversations on Consciousness (2005) and Ten Zen Questions (2009).

Prof Richard Wiseman is based at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, and has gained an international reputation for research into quirky areas of psychology, including deception, humour, luck and the paranormal.

Prof Wiseman has written The Luck Factor - a best selling book exploring the lives and minds of lucky people. His latest book, Quirkology, explores the curious science of everyday life, including the psychology of lying, love, and laughter.

A passionate advocate for science, Prof Wiseman is well known for his media appearances, high-profile talks, live performances, and large-scale studies. Over 1 million people have taken part in his mass participation experiments, and his YouTube channel has received over 5 million views. Prof Wiseman also regularly acts as a creative consultant for print, broadcast and new media.

Vivienne Parry is a science writer and broadcaster. She presents many series for Radio 4 including the multi award winning ‘Am I normal', writes prolifically for the Times, Guardian Good Housekeeping amongst others, is a member of both the MRC and UCL Councils and in the past has presented Tomorrow's World, reported for Panorama, been a columnist for the News of the World and an agony aunt for women's magazines.

Professor Sergio Della Sala holds a degree in "Medicine and Surgery" from the University of Milan (where he was also first appointed as Consultant in Neurology) and a PhD in Neuropsychology. He joined the University of Edinburgh in April 2004 from Aberdeen where he has held the Chair of Neuropsychology for over 10 years. He has held appointments at various institutions including the University of Milan, Italy, the University of Berkeley - California, the Applied Psychology Unit - Cambridge, the University of Western Australia - Perth.

His research focuses on the relationship between brain and behaviour, with particular reference to memory and amnesia and the cognitive impairments associated to Alzheimer Disease. He published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals and several monographs.

He is also interested in the dissemination of science and, wearing that hat, organized several events and exhibitions, particularly addressed to young people; he is an active member of the Skeptical Inquirers society for the promotion of critical thinking and the recipient of the first (2009) Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science.

Rachel Bell joined IWC Media in January 2007 as executive producer, responsible for Specialist Factual. Previous credits as executive or series producer include David Starkey's Monarchy (Channel 4), The Martians & Us (BBC 4), Trust Me I'm a Healer (BBC2), Superhomes (BBC2), 55 Days: The Fall of Saigon (BBC2 as well as Vets In Practice (BBC1) and Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl for BBC2. Since joining the company her credits include Britain's Lost World (BBC1), Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe (C4), Michaela's Zoo Babies (C5), Terry Pratchett on Alzheimers (BBC2) and The Genius of Charles Darwin (C4) for which she has won a Scottish BAFTA and the Broadcast Award for Best Documentary Series. She is currently in production with The Genius of Britain for Channel 4 - a landmark history of British science.

Science Correspondent Tom Clarke's beat varies from bird flu to climate change. He has covered energy and the environment in the frozen North as part of the first live news bulletin from inside the arctic circle. He met some of the world's most endangered whales threatened by oil exploration in Russia's far East, and followed the growing pains of the UK's landmark Climate Change Bill.

In 2007 Tom reported and presented a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation into the shadowy world of carbon offsetting. Most recently he was electrocuted (voluntarily) in Amsterdam in an attempt to explain an experiment designed to erase fearful memories.

Tom started out as a scientist, studying insects in the cotton fields of the American deep south. After leaving the lab, Tom trained in journalism in New York. He worked as a science producer for American National Public Radio and a science reporter for ABC television's affiliate network. Tom returned to his native England in 2000 and worked as a reporter for the science magazine Nature, before joining Channel 4 News in 2003.

Jan Barfoot, did a PhD in cancer genetics at the University of Edinburgh before working as a science communicator delivering biotechnology and bioethical workshops, events and talks to a diverse range of audiences. She has managed the interdisciplinary science funhouse 'Discover Science with the University of Edinburgh' in the Edinburgh Science Festival and facilitated several collaborative public engagement projects including Signing Biotechnology, Making Tremors and Stem Cells: Science and Ethics. She is a trainer in communication and engagement skills and ran the University of Edinburgh's Postgraduate Science Communication Team for 5 years. She is currently the project manager for Researchers in Residence. Her personal public engagement motto is: love your subject, know your audience and have fun!

Dr Mark Miodownik is an engineer and scientist. He received his Ph.D in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University in 1996. He is Head of the Materials Research Group in the Engineering Division at King's College London where his main research area is self-assembling materials on which he has published one book, more than 50 research papers and 3 book chapters. He specialises in collaborations with designers, architects and artists. In 2004 he co-presented a BBC2 TV pilot called 'Chain Reaction' and has appeared many times on Channel 4's 'Grand Designs: Trade Secrets'. He recently presented a programme called "Who Needs Scientists" for BBC Radio 4 and appears as a regular contributor for BBC engineering programmes. Mark has recently been awarded a Senior Media Fellowship from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to allow him more time to interact with the media. He is a member of the Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Group and a Board member of Ignite.

Trevor is a Senior Media Fellow for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He is resident scientist at BBC Radio Manchester, and presented two documentaries for BBC Radio 4 last autumn. Trevor was a finalist for NESTA Famelab in 2005. He gained worldwide news coverage for stories such as "Does a duck quack echo?" and "The Worst Sound in the World" which resulted in interviews on television (e.g. Richard & Judy, MadLab National Geographic) and radio (e.g. Today). He presented two shows to a total of 4500 kids at the Royal Albert Hall entitled ‘Beautiful Music Horrible Sounds' for the Royal Institution/RAH. Most recently he has been filmed for ITN news, Discovery Channel and Teacher's TV and is part of an EPSRC project he ran on How Science Works.

Professor Trevor Cox is a recognized international expert in room acoustics. He investigates how room conditions can be improved for good speech communication, and quality music production and reproduction. He was part of the 6* University of Salford submission to the 2001 RAE and was awarded the Tyndall medal by the Institute of Acoustics.

Trevor is married and has twin boys. When he isn't working, he plays the saxophone loudly and cycles up mountains.

Chris Lintott is an astronomer at the University of Oxford, where he runs the Galaxy Zoo project. He is best known as co-presenter of the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, a position which has taken him from Hawaii to Germany and from the Canary Islands to Chile